We’re Racing!

A perfect start to my season; no major problems with the car, and two exciting races. And some creative use of race-tape! Vegar and Edwin volunteered as roadies for this one. We gathered up everything, and after the normal long haul to Våler, we arrived in good time for scrutineering. Normally, I’ve breezed through this – but this time wasn’t that easy. My oil catch tank got some (deserving) comments, and my race suit was found too vintage. But the major worry was that my brake lights didn’t want to work.

We all threw ourselves at the problem, fuelled by cold beer in the somewhat frigid outdoor conditions. After some major head-scratching, lip chewing and general Hmmm-ing, we found that the brake light switch was dead. So, creativity snuck in. After yet more headwringing, we came up with a solution that worked, and passed scrutineering with flying colors (see picture). As a bonus it gave a nice electric blue lightning inside the car whenever I braked…<br>We had a quick dinner of BBQ hot dogs & beer, and inspected all the other fab cars at the track.

After spending the night freezing my nuts off in Hotel Citroën, Saturday started all sunny and new. Vegar and Ed slept in a tent, conditions not much better…

Qualifying was ok, it all felt very slippery on the track, but the car was good. Got 7th out of 18, and on class pole by a considerable margin; I was, however, over half a sec after my personal best.

We did some small checking over everything, adjusted the tire pressures, and off for the races.

Race 1 was highly entertaining: Rune gave me a good chase in the Lotus Cortina all the way; I was even forced to block him a couple of times when he got a good run. Bent in his Escort was worried about overheating, which meant we all caught him, and I spent several laps almost pushing him, trying to get past. After a while Rune, Thomas Hjellkrem in his rapid Volvo and I tried to pass each other all at the same time at the end of the straight, leading to a scary moment out of which Thomas used the escape road, and I emerged at the front of the group. Whew.

Brake light switch :)

From there on in I managed to keep everybody at bay, finishing where I started, and with neither Ed not Lars Kristian in the racr, the class win was in the bag.

Race two was less interesting; the grid was set by laptimes, and some of the bigger cars finishing behind me did set better laptimes, so I was left hanging a bit in the start. I had a good tussle with Thomas in the Volvo, but this time he got the better end of the deal.

All good fun – two class victories, car running good, and still as pretty!

Thanks to Vegar & Ed for helping out, Vidar for his spares department, and everybody else for a highly enjoyable weekend!